


How Constance Got Her Groove Back

by jediseagull



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, Families of Choice, Pregnancy, possible hints of OT3 but frankly i'm not holding out much hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 18:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2478296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jediseagull/pseuds/jediseagull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months after being kidnapped, threatened, and nearly killed, Constance's life is falling apart. Luckily, the Musketeers will always come back for a friend - it's just that Constance is no longer the only one who needs help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Constance Got Her Groove Back

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I don't know. I'm still working on the band AU, but this is the beginning of what will probably be my next try at this fandom. Constance deserves so much better than to be saddled with her emotionally manipulative asshole of a spouse, and this is a very roundabout way of fixing that. Probably involving lots of unrepentant fluff. 
> 
> Unbeta'd again, but I'll keep on looking for someone!

Bonacieux is still weak, the first night after her kidnapping. The doctor said he had lost a fair amount of blood, but that he would recover with time and care. Constance supposes she should be grateful, and can’t quite manage it. 

Her husband’s recovery is slow, and he spends much of the next week in bed demanding her attentions. She barely has the time to eat, much less leave the house, and she knows by the fourth day of his convalescence that he is doing this on purpose. He does not yet trust that his life is enough of a counterweight to keep her tied to hearth and home. He is right to.

Constance dreams of broken glass bottles and stolen kisses and the press of a pistol against her cheek, sees the flash of a blue cloak through the window one day and nearly loses a toe when she drops her kitchen knife. But no men come knocking at her door, promising adventure, and she retrieves it with a heavy heart.

The doctor had told Bonacieux to avoid heavy strain during his healing, and indeed the first few days he dropped off to sleep almost as soon as she had extinguished the lights in their bedroom.

No longer. Tonight he lies heavily on top of her, thrusting and mouthing at her neck, and Constance closes her eyes and tries to think of d’Artagnan. Then she stops, because imagining d’Artagnan here with her is a painful reminder: this man is not he, and this act is a mockery of d’Artagnan’s love and tenderness. She thinks instead of forget-me-nots, frozen blue and delicate in Athos’ discarded locket, and holds that image in her head as her husband shudders above her.  
  
Over the next several nights Bonacieux is persistent in his affections, and Constance thinks that this is his attempt to reforge their bond. It is not enough. Sex cannot build upon nonexistent foundations, and if Bonacieux had ever felt more than a proprietary sort of possessiveness for her, he might have known that there was no spark to be rekindled. 

* * *

Two long and dreary months later, as she is heaving up bile for the third time that morning, Constance has the awful realization that it was not a _spark_ he was trying to kindle within her. She has missed her last bleeding. Nausea clogs her throat, and her heart aches even as she heaves again. She had told d’Artagnan of her desire for a child, and she had meant it. Holding little Henry to her own chest and inhaling the sweet milky smell of his hair, she had _wanted_. Now the desire feels like a chain, binding her to this house and her husband until the day she dies.

She knows there are women who might help her – women who practice what the Church calls witchcraft, who create pills and potions that will stop a babe’s heart beating before it ever breathes air. Bonacieux would never need to know.  
  
But –

She is halfway towards the neighborhood where one of these women is said to live, and there are tears dropping off the end of her cheeks to land in the dusty ground below.

She still wants. She cannot bring herself to love Bonacieux, but she could love a child, her child, regardless of his father.

It is there, crying quietly in the middle of the street, that Athos finds her.  
  
Of all the Musketeers, he knows her best. They met years ago, when she was a lonely new bride and he a grieving widower, both of them desperately, quietly miserable in the way that begs other people not to notice. He’d been passed out in an alleyway, still drunk from the night before, when the pickpocket who’d snatched her purse tripped over his prone form. Athos hadn’t been pleased to wake up to a knee in the gut, and he’d taken that displeasure out on the thief. Only then had he noticed Constance, shocked and staring from the mouth of the alleyway. 

“My purse,” she’d said shakily, and he’d rummaged through the unconscious man’s shirt for a moment to retrieve it, handing it back to her with a graceful inclination of his head. His hands had been trembling, and she’d noticed that beneath his beard, his cheeks were hollow from hunger.

She had offered him a hot meal in gratitude – in retrospect, she really ought to stop feeding strange men with swords – and their odd little friendship had grown from there.

He registers her tears now with a blink that, in any other man, would be a violent curse. “Madame Bonacieux…?”

She hiccups, and dashes at her eyes. “Nothing! It’s nothing.”  
  
“Did he hurt you?” Athos is not ever what she would call _expressive_ , but she hears the protective fury in his voice and it is too much, on top of everything else, to learn that she can miss her friends even more than she already did. She wails, and flings herself forward. One of his arms goes around her waist, the other hovers anxiously around her head for a moment before tentatively resting on the crown of her head. She hears his breathing hitch with discomfort, and thinks, inanely, _He would be a terrible father_.

But he is a good man, and a good friend, and that is what she needs right now. He escorts her to the side of the road, and offers her a grimy handkerchief to wipe her eyes. “If you wait at the barracks, Madame, the others will look after you while I go speak to your husband.” His voice sours on the last word, and she realizes he still believes Bonacieux has struck her.  
  
“No,” she says. “It’s not – I am unharmed. Thank you.” He’s looking at her oddly now, a little puzzled under the broad rim of his hat. But she is reluctant to tell him the truth. It seems so very personal, and Athos has never dealt well with the emotions of others. What she needs is to clear her head, room to breathe and to think, but that’s not possible in Paris. She settles for the next best thing. “Bonacieux is away on business and the house feels too big for one. You’re all are welcome for supper, if you like.” Perhaps familiar company will calm her enough that she can figure out what in God’s name she’s going to do next. Judging by the slop she’s seen served in the garrison, they’ll leap at the offer of a home-cooked meal.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, her ploy works like a dream. The regiment’s finest turn up at her door as she is finishing with the plates, and if d’Artagnan shoots her a pained look as she welcomes them all inside, Aramis and Porthos more than make up for it with their grins and raucous laughter. “Madame!” Aramis cries, sweeping her a flourishing bow. “We have been desolate without your lovely presence these last few months.”

“Shove it,” Porthos says, shouldering his friend out of the way. “Ignore him, ma’am. He just wants extra helpings; Serge’s been sick these last few days and he can’t cook worth a da – to save his life.”

“Calumny, every word!” Aramis exaggerates the effect of the shove, stumbling to one side and clutching at his heart. “Porthos, you wound me.”  
  
“Both of you sit down before she changes her mind,” Athos grumbles, nudging the door shut behind him. Constance can’t help it. The smile that spills out of her feels like sunrise after a long winter’s night. She has missed them.

Supper is a ragout, thick with potatoes and mushrooms and generous slices of mutton. It’s not a kingly meal but it suits his Musketeers just fine, judging by the way they wolf down their portions and then look hopefully around for seconds. Even d’Artagnan has stopped giving her mournful glances in favor of scraping the last bits of vegetable out of his bowl. She has the rest of the pot waiting on the fire in the kitchen for just this moment and so with a laugh she stands to oblige them.  
  
She is feeling pleasantly flattered, until she steps into the kitchen. The sudden heat and the smell of the slow-cooked meat are overwhelming, and she gags violently, fighting to keep the contents of her stomach.

“Constance?” D’Artagnan, impatient as ever. It’s his youth, she knows, and wishes he had been willing to wait just this once. “Constance, what’s wrong?” She can’t answer him, not if she doesn’t want to be sick all over the floor. “Aramis!” He yells, and there is the clatter of chairs in the other room.  
  
Cool fingers find her forehead, and she closes her eyes and leans into the pressure with relief. “D’Artagnan, get her some water. Can you stand?” She nods and finds two pairs of hands supporting her elbows, easing her to her feet. Athos has pulled a chair out for her at the dining table, and Porthos and Aramis lower her gently into it, the latter coming around to peer closely at her eyes and face. “You don’t feel feverish. Have you been ill today?” D’Artagnan chooses that moment to return with a cup of water, and she sips at it slowly, feeling the nausea subside as she thinks. She doesn’t want to worry them, and if she pretends an illness they’ll surely call a doctor. 

“No,” she says eventually. “But I have been…sleeping poorly, since – well. Sometimes I get dizzy spells, that’s all.” She feels bad, using her kidnapping as an excuse. D’Artagnan looks stricken with guilt, and Athos behind him not much better off. But Aramis is still inspecting her, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful. He has always been smarter than he lets on. He glances up, and his face does something complicated at Porthos, who clearly understands what he wants.

“Come on, give the lady some space,” the big Musketeer says, using his bulk to herd his comrades out the door. It shuts with a quiet thud, and Aramis sighs.  
  
“Forgive me my indiscretion, Constance, but I must ask.” She knows what’s coming even as he meets her gaze, apologetic. “Are you with child?”  
  
She can’t lie to his face. “Yes.” She will not cry again, she swears to herself, even as the tears begin to well up. She grips the arms of the chair tightly to bring herself back under control. “I found out this morning.”

“How long have you been having trouble eating?”  
  
“A few weeks.” He hisses with sympathy. “It’s not so bad. Broths and the like, they’re okay.”

“If you’ll allow me one further indiscretion,” he says, and his voice is more hesitant now than ever before. “The baby’s father…?”  
  
It takes her a moment. “No. I – We haven’t seen each other since the day with Milady de Winter.” She blushes furiously and then says, quieter, “I had my monthlies afterwards.” He nods, and pats her hand soothingly where it clutches at the armrest.

“I can keep it from the others if you wish, though sooner or later – well, they’ll figure it out if they see you, in a few months.” Does she wish it? Bonacieux is due back in a week’s time, and the possibility of discovery is slim if she never leaves the house.

A fist thumps once on the door, and it swings open to reveal Athos. “A courier just came with a letter for Madame Bonacieux.” He offers it to her, and she sees her husband’s seal on one side. Aramis stands, withdrawing with Athos to the doorway in an effort to give her privacy.

 _My dear Constance_ , she reads. _My patron has asked me to obtain a very particular fabric for him. The cloth is only produced in a remote region of England, and I must go myself if I wish to avoid being swindled by their miserly craftsmen. It may take me several months’ journey. I trust you will maintain the reputation of the House of Bonacieux until I return, and I remain, as ever, your loving husband._ It is signed _Jacques-Michel_ , and the seal is certainly genuine enough.  
  
She lingers over the words _several months’ journey._ Undoubtedly he will be spying for his so-called patron; there is no fabric in England finer than what they can weave in France, and he has been so reluctant to leave her alone besides. But that is not relevant. She considers the phrase. Months.

Just like that, Constance makes her decision.

* * *

“No fuckin’ way,” Porthos whistles. Athos raises one eyebrow at him, and he quickly adds, “Begging your pardon.”

D’Artagnan has a strange cast to his face. She knows what he wants to ask, but Aramis is quicker. “With the babe’s father out of the country for several months, Constance, you must feel free to ask our help with anything that you need.” 

D’Artagnan’s face falls noticeably, and Porthos must kick him under the table, because he yelps and manages an honest smile. “Congratulations. Your baby is already lucky – he has a wonderful mother.” Even heartbroken, he never forgets to care for others, and she feels a painful swell of love for her young Gascon.

“And,” she says firmly, “Four godfathers, who will teach him to be clever and resourceful and, I suspect, how to get into trouble – and out of it.” It is an impulsive declaration, to be sure, and Bonacieux will never stand for it. But Porthos grins blindingly, Athos and d’Artagnan have twin looks of startled happiness spreading across their faces and Aramis –

Aramis, eyes shining suspiciously, fists one hand over his heart in a silent pledge. _All for one_ , she thinks, and is fiercely pleased. _And one for all_.


End file.
